


she's ready

by thefudge



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Masturbation, Mind Control, Teacher-Student Relationship, creepiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-13 23:19:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7142285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She falls asleep slowly, unaware of what has happened. He does not fall asleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	she's ready

She's entering the brain. 

It's nothing like the plastic model they showed her in biology class. This one's not parceled and divided into weighty lumps. It's not crenelated. It's not an effigy of man. 

This one is perfectly round, gleaming silver. It's warm, despite the cold shades of blue. 

It's a metal cocoon. 

It's Cerebro.

 

Is it weird, touching yourself while thinking of - well - a helmet? 

She thinks it must be, because no one in this school finds Cerebro _hot_.

Some don't even know it exists. 

 

They're discussing  _Jane Eyre_ with Professor Xavier. He's talking to them about Jane's powers.

"For wasn't she like you, in a way? Cast off, but resilient? Gifted, but untrained? Endowed with a power of intuition and feeling beyond her understanding? Let us go back to the Red Room..."

Ah, yes, the Red Room. They lock poor Jane inside those carmine walls and they let her taste her fears until she wants nothing more than to be released. As metaphors go, it's not very subtle. She blushes only because she hates how predictable young girls are. She's supposed to be above these things. Her mind is a sanctuary.

 

She dislikes how easily Professor Xavier's eyes catch hers as he sweeps the class in one single rotation. He's always moving, never letting them slip.

Her attention cannot waver. She can't even chew on her pencil. 

"Jane seeks balance, a path towards control and submission, for these powers overwhelm her...She thinks she must submit to Mr. Rochester to find absolution. But is that true?"

Jean stammers out a weak "No", a negation that has nothing to do with herself.

But _Jane/Jean_ , it's only a matter of consonants and vowels. 

 

She visits her private Red Room. It is blue and silver and sometimes white, because all colors live and die in pale, milk white. 

She travels in this white light, immersed in her own head, but always, _always_ dreaming of the brain outside herself. The beautiful Cerebro. 

 

Jean walks by his side, uncertain of her step - whether she's walking too briskly, or maybe dragging her feet too much, and thus insulting his own leisurely pace.

He notices her discomfort early-on and tries to convince her she does not need to tiptoe around him.

"I am a figure of authority inasmuch as I am your _friend_ , Jean. We cannot lead except by example and generosity."

She smiles dumbly at his remark, thinking privately that generosity is an abstract, sort of wonky idea. She's never liked sharing, never liked offering. Everyone else gives her _everything_ , whether they want to or not. She is already a vessel in which strangers pour their existence. Generosity, at this point, feels like suicide. 

She hasn't learned yet to protect her thoughts very well, and Professor Xavier has already read her rebuttal.

_Ah, you think me an idealist, Jean?_ he inquires kindly, delving gently into her recess.

Jean is startled momentarily. "No, Professor."

 

Control and submission, they aren't supposed to be bad things. So he says. 

There's a freedom in both, if you can seize it.

The trick is, only _you_ can control yourself. The only master you submit to is yourself.

Picture yourself as a benevolent master, Jean. Reach out and own yourself. 

Punish yourself, if you must. But don't let anyone else do it.

_Learn to control **Jean** , Jean. _

It's several sessions later that she speaks to him, tentatively, shooting out a thought from one fevered summer day to a cool winter night:

_I'd rather let you control me, Professor. It's easier._

_No, Jean. There's no such thing as easy. Never think of it again. You are your own master -_

_I trust you. You won't try to be my master._

 

She is not being too forward. She is being honest. Controlling your every thought is a burden too great for a seventeen year-old. But she's asking too much, perhaps. She's asking for a filter. She's asking for a Mr. Rochester, silver and blue. 

 

_I'm sorry, Sir. I'm just tired._

_You may rest, Jean. There's time to improve tomorrow._

_One more minute, Sir._

_No, you should sleep. We both should. My own mind is eroding._

_I can't. I can't go to sleep. I'm going to dream again. Dream awful things._

_They are only  dr-_

_Please tell me. Please, Professor._

She can almost hear his sigh from across the school. 

_You shall have no dreams tonight, Jean._

His command is a gentle whip, a caress of the brain.

 

He never seems to enjoy manipulating her mind. He is always reluctant to push too far. But she takes a great deal of pride in the brief, glorious seconds when he is at her whim.

_Careful, Jean...just like I taught you...no, not like that...Jean, I..._

Suddenly, she can see inside him without restraint. The doors open, rusty on their hinges, and she peers inside a world of guilt and shame and power. She only gets as far as his childhood - a solitary boy, consumed by his future, rich but hollowed out, desiring but hating what he desires. 

His mind is always quick to fight back and she is cast out of his domain before she can read another page. It's always a rude awakening with him. The last thing she sees is those beautiful eyes, cold and yet full of a sun-like blaze. 

_I'm sorry, Sir. Did I do something wrong?_

_No, Jean...no._

 

And he still won't let her inside Cerebro. He claims she is not ready. 

_I'm old enough, I'm strong enough._

_It's not about age or strength, Jean._

_Then what is it about?_

_We will speak about this after class,_ he remonstrates with a touch of warmth, as he swivels his chair and directs his attention to a student's question. 

 

The other girls all say he's got beautiful hair, beautiful flowing hair. 

But she's rather neglectful of that. She shrugs, and she means it honestly, because she hasn't got a crush on him like the rest of them. She's above all that, her mind is a sanctuary. 

What arrests her are his eyes. And only the eyes.

Windows into the mind, are they not? 

 

 

The problem with touching yourself is that, at one point, your mind short-circuits. Pleasure denies itself during daylight. At night, though, the elements converge and you admit to yourself, _This is who I am._

In that fatal point when finger and clit are one, your shields collapse and you become the most generous being alive. The fountain where all release is your release. _Ah, you think me an idealist, Jean?_

_Yes, yes, Sir...I do..._

 

_Jean?_

 

He sounds out of breath. As if he's the one who has been caught in the middle of a fantasy. _Jean? Are you...all right?_

She moans into his nerves, into the synapses that make them tingle, into the axons that connect tissue and cell, into the cranial pockets of air that ventilate his brain.

He shuts his eyes tightly, but the image burns on his retina. There she is, with Cerebro between her legs. In her reverie, she's surpassed him. She does not use the machine to find mutants or lost souls. In her vision, she _is_ Cerebro and the machine is human, flawed and pitiful, seeking entrance at her gates.

The image disappears and he sees her, in his mind's eye, tossing in bed. 

She can't stop, not yet. And he stays silent, absorbing her desperate cries as she rides her orgasm to the end. He cannot get out of her. 

When she is done, he exhales softly. 

She falls asleep slowly, unaware of what has happened. He does not fall asleep. 

 

"Why does Mr. Rochester recover his eyesight?" he asks the class with the hint of a challenge. 

Jean raises her hand shyly. Then, more determined. He looks down. 

 

_You are like me, Jean. You'll learn._

_But I'm not. You're so...contained. You've freed your mind from...pollution._

_Oh, believe me. I haven't._

She almost wants to bite back, "Prove it", but he's careful to leave her head whenever the discussion veers towards aggression. 

 

The dreams are too vivid and sometimes she wakes up crying spasmodically. She hates her room, hates the bed, hates the sheets. She hates that she can hear what the other kids are doing under the sheets, she hates that their minds can't guess what she's thinking. It's not a two-way street. She is alone, with their thoughts.

_Xavier totally likes her best....she's his favorite....teacher's pet._

She absorbs thoughts the way a foetus absorbs his twin. 

 

He leans down only an inch from her face, and she can smell his skin, the epidermis that carries secrets the mind cannot reveal. She wonders, absurdly, how he takes his showers. 

His hands hold her temples like a vise.

His blue eyes are closed. She stares at his forehead, folded and creased, like a letter never sent. All that effort for her. She must not disappoint him. She submits.

She remembers being young at the dentist's, lying down in a similar chair, being opened up from her molars.

_Just a little bit more, Jean. Work with me._

She does. She works with him. She opens her wings for a moment, lets him see the brilliant flames.

When he's done and her clothes are sticking to her skin, he kisses her forehead. 

It's an accident, an afterthought; he simply brushes his lips against her brow, but -

But. Jean is not Jane.

 

He makes excuses. It must be an excuse. Because he's at her bedside one night.

"Prof..."

"I heard you screaming in my head. I saw fire. I saw ...terrible things, Jean. I didn't know you -"

"It's the end of the world I see," she replies bleakly, maybe with a touch of dark humor on her tongue. "I see an apocalypse almost every night. I'm used to it by now."

"You shouldn't be." He sounds lost for the first time since she's met him.

"Why not?"

_Because you are rebirth. Even if the world falls, you are phoenix_ , he thinks and she hears him.

"Could you...please stay until I fall asleep?"

He complies. 

 

He's seen the wings, but he's also seen the girl with the brain between her legs. Why does he think she won't fall?

_You will rise again._

How can he be so sure?

 

In his mind, she rises. She rises above him. In his mind, he can walk - or rather, he doesn't need to. He is only disorder and matter. But she rises above him, pins him down, gives him shape. And his hands land on her hips and he pulls her to him with a little grunt of godly power. He sees himself for the little boy that he is, alone in a dark mansion, haunted by red hair. It used to be the red hair of a little blue thing, smiling sadly at him. But this hair burns, burns like the sun. And she quivers like an arrow, and she springs from the bow, and the last image he can see is him taking her hair in his fist, biting into it, absorbing its power. 

 

The next day, he burns everything, cleans his mind until it reflects a kindly professor.  

 

She loves the way the little eye scans her full body. She loves the way it swivels and turns green. She loves the way the X opens up for her. 

She loves the light-bulb platform. She loves how it stings out like a tongue, how it's waiting to taste her. 

The Room is everything she imagined and more.

At the end of the platform lies her reward. 

She stops frozen in her tracks. But he is there behind her, always. Charles pushes her forward.

_Go ahead, Jean. You're ready._

 

" _Reader, I married him._ Can anyone interpret this enigmatic statement? Yes, Jean?"

 "She's ready." 

**Author's Note:**

> A little gift for all my sinners, one in particular (she knows who she is).


End file.
